The Tone of Our Times ― Sound, Sense, Economy, and Ecology

In this wide-ranging book, Frances Dyson examines the role of sound in thedevelopment of economic and ecological systems that are today in crisis. Connecting early theoriesof harmony, cosmology, and theological doctrine to contemporary media and governance, Dyson usessound, tone, music, voice, and noise as forms of sonority through which the crises of"eco" can be read. The sonic environment, Dyson argues, is fundamental to both sense andsensibility, and its delimitation has contributed to the "senselessness" of a world nowcaught between spiraling debt and environmental degradation.

Dyson draws onscenes, historical moments, artworks, and artistic and theoretical practice to situate thereverberative atmosphere that surrounds and sustains us. From Pythagoras's hammer and thetransmutation of music into mathematics, to John Cage's famous experience in the anechoic chamber,to the relocation of the stock market from the street to the computer screen, to Occupy WallStreet's "people's microphone": Dyson finds policies and practices of exclusion. The soundof Pythagoras's forge and the rabble of the market have been muted, rearticulated, and transformed,Dyson argues, through the monotones of media, the racket of financialization, and the gibberish ofpolitical speech.

Informed by contemporary sound art, philosophy, media andsociopolitical theory, The Tone of Our Times offers insights into present crisesthat are relevant to a broader understanding of how space, the aural, and listening have shaped andcontinue to shape the world we live in.

Frances Dyson is Emeritus Professor of Cinema and Technocultural Studies at the University of California, Davis, and Visiting Professorial Fellow at the National Institute for Experimental Arts, University of New South Wales.